


Remnants

by BeneathTheLight



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 03:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21206717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeneathTheLight/pseuds/BeneathTheLight
Summary: Richie says goodbye.





	Remnants

It seemed strange that Derry hadn't really grown since the 80s. Sure, the shops and movie theaters and arcades that he'd known like the back of his hand as a kid were mostly gone, replaced by newer and more modern establishments or sitting empty altogether. Still, Richie thought it should have gotten bigger. Maybe parts of the Barrens would have been cleared for new developments, or the small family owned stores displaced by a behemoth big box store. Just like most every other town in America. But it was much the same town he remembered --or partially remembered, anyway -- from nearly 30 years earlier. _Fucking clown probably wanted it that way_, he thought with a shudder. He wondered, as he walked down a familiar, leafy residential street, if that would change now that the dark influence of It was gone.  
  
He hadn't really meant to come down that street; he'd stepped out of the hotel early that morning for a last walk around town before heading back to California, hoping it would calm the feeling of restless unease he couldn't shake. He wandered without thinking and just found himself there, slowing as he approached a two story red brick house with a wide front porch and a very familiar wrought iron fence around the front yard. He stopped and stared up at the house he'd lived in until he was 15 years old. It had always seemed too big for just Richie and his parents; much later, he learned that they'd hoped for more children that simply never came. He scanned the upper floor, trying to pick out the window that had been his bedroom. He knew it was over the porch; he'd started sneaking out at night not long before they moved away and the porch roof was his road to freedom.  
  
The porch, though...his smile faded. The porch was new. When Richie was a child, the porch was at the top of eight steps, painted white wood with a wrought iron railing and sturdy white wooden posts at regular intervals. The space underneath was covered with a white wooden lattice--except of course for the sliver just behind the steps that was the perfect size for a child to squirm through. It was a perfect hiding place, one he'd utilized many times over the course of his childhood. It wasn't wooden anymore. The old porch had been torn down. The posts and railing were still there, but the base had been torn out and replaced with solid concrete. The space either side of the steps had been filled in with dirt and planted. It was grassy and leafy and cheerful, and the sight made him feel sick.  
  
"Can I help you with something?"  
  
Richie spun around, startled. A man, not much more than Richie's own age, was watching him suspiciously. He must have come down the street without Richie, lost in thought as he was, even noticing. It occurred to Richie how he must look, a total stranger staring at a house with, he now saw, a child's play set visible in the back yard. With all the child disappearances and murders that had been going on, it's no wonder the guy was looking at him like he was.  
  
"Oh, sorry man, is this your house?" When the man nodded, Richie grinned. "Yeah, I used to live here. Long time ago. We moved away back in the early 90s when I was about 15. This is the first time I've been back in this town since. Name's Richie Tozier," he said, extending a hand.  
  
The man shook his hand, still a bit wary. "Norman Connell," he said. "Early 90s, eh? My family bought this house around 98. Must have been one family between yours and mine. I inherited it when my father died a few years back. It's a good house."  
  
"Yeah, if you have kids you might want to make sure any of them with rebellious tendencies don't have the bedrooms over the porch. Used to sneak out that way a lot in my day."  
  
Norman laughed. "Already on that, I did the same thing. Hey, what'd you say your name was again?"  
  
"Richie Tozier," he replied, expecting that he was about to be recognized. He wasn't wildly famous but being recognized was becoming more and more common all the time.  
  
"Huh," he said. He looked at Richie, considering, and then seemed to make a decision. "Come on in the house. I have something to show you."  
  
Richie hesitated. That sounded like the opening scene of every horror movie he'd ever seen. Still, large parts of his life were pretty much a horror movie and he'd survived so far. "Uh, sure, okay."  
  
Norman opened the gate and headed up the walk to the front door. "Can I get you anything? Something to drink?" Norman was saying as they walked in. "Wife makes a killer iced tea."  
  
"Oh, thanks, but I'm good. I can't stay long."  
  
"All right, you wait here, I'll be right back."  
  
Richie looked around the room, waiting for a nostalgia that never came. He remembered the place well enough. He even remembered times spent in that very room with Eddie, Stanley and Bill when his family was the first of the four to get cable tv. But even for a slightly nerdy comic book reading kid who spent a small fortune at the arcade, he spent most of his time outdoors. When he peeked in the kitchen where he might expect the memories to be a little more charged, it was much the same. All the appliances were shiny new stainless steel, white cabinets against tastefully pale yellow walls. Nothing like the battered, mismatched kitchen he grew up in. He was glad. Nostalgia was just another way to be sad for things you could never have; he'd had his fill of that.  
  
"All right now, here we go," said Norman, coming back down the hall. "We dug this up when we replaced the front porch. Decided to hang on to it. I don't know why. Didn't have any reason to think we'd ever find its rightful owner."  
  
Richie looked at what he held and for a moment, forgot how to breathe. Norman was holding a dirty, dented red Folgers coffee can. The duct tape around the lid had been cut, but he could still read his name and Eddie's in Eddie's childish scrawl. He held it out. "I guess this must be yours. A bit early to open it but we already did anyway. Everything that was in there when we opened it is still there. My wife kept telling me to throw it out. Something else kept telling me not to. Glad I didn't now."  
  
_"Oh my God, do you know how many bugs must be down here? I bet there are undiscovered species in here with all kinds of weird diseases that science has never even heard of!" griped Eddie as they crawled through the opening in the lattice under the steps._  
  
_"Jesus Eddie, do you want to bury this thing in a safe place or not?"_  
  
_The thing was a Folgers coffee can. Red, dented in one side, with a white plastic lid. Richie held it under one arm as he crawled in, light from the flashlight he held bouncing crazily all over the walls. Eddie followed with a plastic shopping bag full of all manner of odds and ends. They'd spent the better part of the month carefully choosing just the right items._  
  
_"Yeah, but..."_  
  
_"Then shut the hell up and start digging!"_  
  
_An hour later, Eddie was covering the lid with duct tape to keep it secure. He produced a marker and on the tape wrote in large block letters "TIME CAPSULE. RICHIE TOZIER AND EDDIE KASPBRAK. DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 2017." They placed it in the hole they'd dug and ceremoniously filled the hole with dirt._  
  
_"There we go. Thirty years from now we'll come back and dig it up."_  
  
_"We'll be like, 40," Richie said. "Probably our knees will be too bad to get under here then!"_  
  
_They both laughed, as if the very idea of ever being anything other than 11 years old was a silly dream. "Come on," Richie said. "Let's go see if we can find Bill and Stan."_  
  
Richie's hands shook as he took it. "I'm glad too."  
  
"This Eddie fella, a friend? Relative? You still know him?"  
  
"Yeah. My...best friend. We were 11 when we did this," he said, voice tight. "He passed away recently."  
  
Norman nodded, looking sympathetic. "Sorry to hear it."  
  
"Thank you," Richie said. "This means a lot. Really. More than you could possibly know."  
  
"Well I'm glad I could help then," he said.  
  
"I should get going. I have a long drive home. Again, thank you."  
  


* * *

  
  
Bill's car was gone when Richie got back to the hotel. He had an early flight and they knew they probably wouldn't get to see each other before he left for the airport so they'd said their goodbyes the night before. Still, he was disappointed. Mike was working and everyone else was gone. There really was no other reason to stay. He packed up his car and checked out of the hotel, trying to shake the feeling that there was something else he needed to do. It was over, and the cost had been higher than he'd ever dreamed. It was time to go. He drove slowly around the town, certain that it was the last time he'd ever see it. He passed the Derry Public Library and thought briefly about stopping in to say goodbye to Mike, but that had been done the night before. It would just be one more sad goodbye and that too was a thing he'd had enough of. He turned up Witcham Street and onto Canal Street, taking great pleasure in shouting "Fuck you Paul Bunyan!!" out the window to the statue as he drove by. And then he saw the Kissing Bridge. Abruptly he turned into Bassey Park and pulled up to the bridge.  
  
The "R + E" was still there. Faded but visible. Squatting down, he slowly drew his knife over the letters, hollowing out the accumulated dirt of 27 years until it looked freshly carved. He couldn't help but smile; Eddie would think this was the worst. He wondered if Eddie had ever seen it and wondered. Gingerly, he traced the letters with his fingers, smiling sadly.  
  
"Richie?"  
  
He turned, standing quickly and shoving the knife into his pocket. Bill had parked slightly down the road and was walking up, a puzzled smile on his face. He tried to tamp down the panic that threatened to take hold. It was just Bill.  
  
"I thought you were on your way back to LA."  
  
Bill grimaced. "Yeah. Flight got canceled. I had to reschedule and the only flight I could get isn't until 3 in the morning. I was planning to bug Mikey for awhile before I went back. See how much trouble I could get him into." He grinned and raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were on your way back for your show in Reno."  
  
"Yeah. I um. I canceled. Not quite ready to go back to that yet," he said, and reflexively glanced at the fence. "I'm just looking around a little. You know. Now that I can do it without worrying about a murderous clown."  
  
Bill had seen the glance though, and knelt down to look. He traced the letters with his fingers and turned to look up at Richie. "This has been here since we were kids."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"You did this?"  
  
"Yeah," he said again, staring at his shoes. The fear was clawing at him, making his stomach churn and his hands shake. But this was Bill. Bill for Christ's sake. "I thought it could use some freshening up." His voice shook but fear was also on the list of things he wanted to be done with. Slowly he found the courage to meet Bill's eyes. There was no disgust there, and no surprise.  
  
"Since we were kids then?" he asked. Richie could only nod. "Just like Ben and Bev."  
  
"Well," Richie said before he could stop himself, "not fucking quite."  
  
Bill looked stricken. He stood, trying and failing to stutter out an apology.  
  
"Hey, take it easy," Richie said. "I'm sorry, Billy. I shouldn't have snapped. I know what you meant." He leaned against his car and Bill did the same.  
  
"S-sorry," Bill said quietly after a few deep breaths. "Did he know?"  
  
Richie shrugged. "If he did it wasn't because I told him. Never got the chance. I was going to. When this was all done." He took his glasses off and covered his face, but didn't even try to stop the tears. After all, he was with Bill. One of the four people left in the world who Richie would allow to see him cry.  
  
"Oh, Richie," Bill said softly. He put his hand on his shoulder, letting him cry for a few minutes. Then abruptly he pushed off the car and turned to face Richie. "Give me your car keys," he said.  
  
Richie blinked at him. "What?" Despite the tears and the lack of glasses, he could see Bill was standing with folded arms, looking grimly determined.  
  
"Keys," he said. Richie was too baffled to do anything but comply. He handed the keys over and watched Bill go around to the driver's side of his car. "Get in."  
  
"Wait, who the fuck said you could drive my car?" He got in, picking up the time capsule and holding it in his lap.  
  
"You did give me the keys so I guess you did. We could take mine but it's a rental and who cares if it gets vandalized out here. Can't leave this beauty out for the wolves, though." He started the car and glanced over. "Why are you carrying around a coffee can?"  
  
Richie told him about the visit to his old house and about the dumb idea he and Eddie had after watching one too many cheesy sci-fi movies.  
  
"Wow. Looked in it yet?"  
  
"No. Can't bring myself to. I have no idea what's in there."  
  
Bill hummed and started driving.  
  
"I swear to God Bill if you so much as scratch this car, childhood friend/fellow alien clown killer/famous author or not, I will beat the shit out of you."  
  
"I've been driving for 25 years, Trashmouth. Calm down."  
  
"Where are we going?" He watched as Bill turned onto Kansas St, a sinking feeling in his gut.  
  
"To tell him."  
  
Richie didn't speak again until they turned onto Neibolt Street.  
  
"Billy, I can't."  
  
Bill pulled the car in on the opposite side of the street from the ruins of 29 Neibolt Street. He shut the car off and they both looked at the place where the crumbling old house had once stood. Yellow caution tape surrounded the lot but there was little other sign that anyone even noticed that a house had collapsed.  
  
"I think if you don't, you'll regret it. We don't have a grave. This is it. W-we both know you'll never come here again. And sure, you can say whatever you need to say to Eddie anywhere, and if there's something of him around that can hear you, it will. But he's there. That makes a difference, if only for you." Richie didn't move. "I can't make you. But I p-promise you I'll sit here and wait as long as you need if you go. All night if that's what you need. I can always get another f-flight."  
  
Without a word Richie got out of the car and crossed the street, ducking under the yellow caution tape stretched across the sidewalk. Carefully, he made his way as close to the edge as he dared. There was no danger here anymore. At least not from Pennywise. Still his stomach churned and his skin prickled with fear. Some things you just never stopped being afraid of. He settled down on the ground and picked at the grass, not sure what he was supposed to do next. He didn't doubt Bill's wisdom. He rarely doubted Bill on anything. It just felt a little silly to pour his heart out to the empty air. And if there was anything left of Eddie still wandering around, which wasn't a thing Richie really believed in anyway, it seemed unlikely it would be hanging around Neibolt Street. He sat there for a long time, trying to come up with the right words to say. But being there only made him remember fear and pain. Eddie with a giant claw through his chest, hot blood splattering on Richie's face. Stan's face snarling at them, spider legs sprouting from his face. Or Eddie as a child, arm bent at an unnatural angle, pinned to the wall and tormented by that fucking clown. He wasn't sure how long he sat there before he finally stood. "Not here, Eds," he whispered. 

* * *

  
Bill was dozing when he got back to the car. He jerked awake when Richie opened the door. "All good?"  
  
"Yeah." He made no move to get in the car. After a few moments Bill leaned over and looked up at him.  
  
"Are you ready to go?"  
  
Richie reached into the car, grabbed the coffee can, and slammed the door. Bill scrambled out after him. "Richie?"  
  
He looked back. "Come on. And give me my fucking keys." He waited, hand outstretched until Bill handed him the keys. Then he started walking. He was dimly aware of Bill hurrying to keep up with him, calling out to ask him where he was going, but he ignored it. Richie figured he'd work it out soon enough. He was right. When Richie climbed over a railing along the side of whatever road he was on and started slipping recklessly down into The Barrens, Bill figured it out.  
  
"The clubhouse?"  
  
Richie stopped and turned back. Bill was panting a little and sweating, and Richie felt abruptly guilty. Richie was over six feet tall with long legs and a mission in mind. Bill was just trying to keep up and work out what the hell was going on. "You don't have to come with me."  
  
"You're going to open it there?"  
  
"I can't think of a better place. Eddie died in that fucking house. His body might be down there --" Richie choked a little on that, but kept talking. "But he isn't. Why the fuck would he be, he was terrified of that place. But he lived in our clubhouse. Some of the best times we ever had were down there. All I can think of back there is his face when he realized what happened. His blood splashing onto my face. Still fucking warm. I don't want to think about him in a place where he was never anything but scared. You know?"  
  
"I do." He worked his way down the hill to stand beside Richie. "Are you sure you want me there for this?"  
  
"If you don't mind?"  
  
"Of course I don't m-mind." He tugged on the sleeve of Richie's jacket. "Come on."

* * *

  
They settled on the floor of the clubhouse under the open door for maximum light, the coffee can between them. Richie looked around, again struck with the understanding that he'd never see this place again. "It's weird, isn't it, that no other kids ever found this place?"  
  
Bill shrugged. "Kids don't even play outside anymore, they just sit inside and play video games or text their friends or some shit. Remember how we spent every moment of daylight in the summers riding around on our bikes? We always had more things we wanted to do than time to do them. When's the last time you drove down a street and saw kids playing outside?"  
  
"I'm here with Old Man Denbrough who wants to know why the kids won't get _on_ his lawn!" Richie said in his best news announcer voice.  
  
"I just feel bad for them, they don't know what they're missing!" he said around his laughter.  
  
"Neighbors complain that Denbrough corners their children demanding that they go play in the dirt!"  
  
"Okay, okay, asshole."  
  
Richie nearly kept pressing the joke; it was the first time since he'd been dragged out of the Neibolt house that he had really laughed. It was nice just to sit with Bill and laugh. They'd done that so many times. But no. He'd come here with a purpose. He looked down at the can and took a deep breath. "Ready?"  
  
"If you are."  
  
Richie took a deep breath and pried the plastic lid off the can. He halfway expected something to happen, like it was Pandora's Box or the Lost Ark of the Covenant. Some magical, terrifying maelstrom that would rise from the old dented can and batter him with the force of the memories it contained. But the lid came off with a pop and nothing else. He laid it aside gently. He could feel Bill's eyes on him. They could sit there all night and he knew Bill would never be the one who reached into that can. It had to be him. Without looking he stuck his hand inside and pulled out the first thing his fingers touched. It was a polaroid photo of the two of them. They were on their bikes, in what looked like the driveway of Richie's house. He remembered, now, his mother arriving home from her shopping one day and seeing them about to ride off to do whatever it is they did back then. She made them stop so she could test her new polaroid camera. Richie looked annoyed and bored and Eddie was smiling sweetly. He half laughed, half sobbed. "Look at this little shit," he said. "My mother thought he was just the most darling little boy. She used to ask me why I couldn't be as polite and well mannered as Eddie. If she only knew, right?" Bill took the photo and looked at it for a moment, and abruptly his smile crumpled and he handed the photo back to Richie, wiping hastily at his eyes.  
  
"He's such a fucking infant in that picture, Jesus."  
  
"Well, we were only about 11."  
  
"I'm so glad you have that, Trashmouth. I really am. Do any of us, besides Mike, have anything of each other anymore?" He shook his head.  
  
Richie couldn't say anything, only nod in agreement as he gazed a little longer at the photo. Carefully he laid it aside. Next was a comic book, The Punisher #1. It was a bit crumpled from being crammed into the coffee can where it only barely fit. "Eddie was convinced this was going to be more popular than Spiderman," Richie said. He opened it up and paged through it.  
  
"Was it?"  
  
"Fuck if I know, Bill. Somewhere along the way I stopped reading comics. I just didn't feel good doing it anymore. I wonder if it's because I connected it to you guys."  
  
"Could be." Bill took the comic and flipped through the pages. "Richie, look." He pulled out a piece of paper, a fragment of regular notebook paper. _"To Richie. I know you don't have the attention span to read anything but comic books. You should get that checked out, man. You probably have ADHD, it's a serious thing. Anyway happy birthday. Eds."_  
  
"Holy shit," Richie breathed. "Holy shit I forgot. How could I forget that? He gave me this for my birthday that year."  
  
"And he signed it 'Eds.' He hated that, didn't he?"  
  
"Yeah." Richie couldn't stop staring at the little note tucked inside the comic book. He remembered now, with perfect clarity, Eddie showing up at his door unannounced on his birthday that year, obviously incredibly pleased with himself. He'd saved money for a month for that thing. His mother hated comic books and she hated Richie. She wouldn't give him money for a comic for him, so Eddie had picked up every coin he saw laying around the house or on the street until he'd had the money for that one lousy comic for Richie's birthday. "Shit," he muttered. "He was always so much better than me."  
  
It went on like that for quite some time. Every item in their makeshift time capsule was taken out and examined. It was almost always a token of something Richie had forgotten completely about. The items were spread out on the floor around them. There were superhero action figures, a report card that Richie didn't want his dad to see, a couple of movie tickets, flyers from some event the middle school held in the park that year...the detritus of the lives of two boys in 1987. It should have made him sad, and in a way it did; more than that, though, it made Eddie feel closer to him than he had since Ben and Bill had dragged him away from Eddie's body.  
  
The final item in the can was a cassette. Richie stared at it, trying to remember what they'd put on it. The label read "Classics from 1987" again in Eddie's handwriting because Richie's handwriting was such a disaster. _If historians find your handwriting on anything in 500 years they're going to think it's some undiscovered system of writing and put your list ranking the Bangles from most hot to least hot in a museum and you will single-handedly destroy western culture, asshole._  
  
"I am dying to know what the hell you and Eddie put down as classics," Bill said, already laughing at the thought. "Wait, wasn't Eddie a big fan of...oh hell. That girl that did the mall concerts?"  
  
"Tiffany! He thought she was going to be the next Madonna." Richie was laughing now, too. "He either liked the most awful pop garbage or...do you remember how he wanted to learn to play saxophone because of Kenny G?"  
  
"And his m-mom refused because--"  
  
"--because he was too delicate--"  
  
"To blow that much!" they both said in unison and howled with laughter. Bill had collapsed backwards, and Richie had doubled over, both of them with tears streaming down their faces. They'd teased him about that for weeks. It felt good to think of Eddie and laugh. Richie thought he'd want that for himself when he died. He wanted people to remember him and smile, not cry.  
  
"I don't guess that rental of yours has a cassette player."  
  
Bill sat up, wiping his eyes. "No car still has a cassette player."  
  
"Just as well," Richie said. "I don't think I could listen to this right now anyway." He began carefully replacing everything in the coffee can. Bill glanced up at the sky through the clubhouse door.  
  
"Gonna be getting dark soon."   
  
"Yeah. We should get going before it does." He replaced the lid and handed it up to Bill when he climbed out of the clubhouse. "Give me a minute, ok?"  
  
"Sure thing, Richie," he said softly. Richie listened while his footsteps receded until he thought Bill was far enough away. He sat down again in the middle of the clubhouse floor.  
  
"Hey Eds," he said, quiet and tentative. "I know, you hate that. Well fuck you, you're dead. I'll call you whatever the fuck I want." He took a deep breath. "Anyway. Bill thought this would be good for me. I guess maybe he's right, even if he had the wrong place. It's just that I miss you I guess. And, I'm so sorry I couldn't help you. You saved me. And look where it got you. It would have been okay if you hadn't. I wasn't mad about the spider Stan thing and I wouldn't have been mad if you hadn't saved me in the lights. But you did. So. Thank you.  
  
Thing is, Eds, there are some things I wanted to say. And you died before I could. Typical asshole move, man. You were always such an asshole. But I loved you anyway. Really. From the time we were kids. Put our initials on the god damn Kissing Bridge. Did you ever see that? I don't know if you loved me. Like that, I mean. It doesn't really matter I guess, not anymore. I loved you. I hope you had a good life, and that your wife was good to you, and that boring ass job made you happy. I'm sorry I missed so much of it. I won't ever forget you again."  
  
He sat there a while longer, eyes closed. The only sounds were the wind in the leaves and the chirping of birds drifting through the clubhouse door. It was nice. Peaceful. He hoped Eddie was too, wherever he might be. He stood.  
  
"Goodbye, Eddie."  
  


* * *

  
  
The trip back to the Kissing Bridge was mostly quiet. Bill had taken one look at his face when he emerged from the clubhouse, given him a hug, and started walking back without a word. By the time they got back to Bill's rental on the Kissing Bridge, it was nearly dark. They got out of Richie's car and stood there, not quite willing to part yet.  
  
"Thank you for that," Richie said at last. "I probably never would have done it. I'd have felt ridiculous. Thank you for going with me."  
  
"Anything for you, Trashmouth. You know that, right?"  
  
"Back atcha, Big Bill."  
  
"So, what now? How much shit will you get for canceling your shows?"  
  
Richie shrugged. He was going to get a lot of shit, he knew that. His manager, his agent, they were going to be so pissed. "Don't give a shit," he answered, completely honestly. "I'm driving back to LA instead of flying. I need some time to think about what I'm going to do. I can't go back to where I was before. Not after all this."  
  
"I think I know what you mean."  
  
"Yeah?" He looked at Bill, trying to read his expression in the darkness. "Tired of being a best selling author?"  
  
Bill gave him a tired smile. "I mean I'm pretty sure there will be a shitshow when I get back after running off and leaving an entire film production in limbo like I did, but honestly I was mostly thinking along more personal lines."  
  
They hadn't talked a great deal about their personal lives. Nothing in depth. Richie knew Bill was married to a famous actress and he thought he'd probably even seen some of her films, but they'd had more pressing things to discuss since arriving in Derry. "I didn't know you were having problems."  
  
"Neither did I. Or I guess I did, but wasn't being h-honest?" He ran his hands through his hair. "Fuck. I don't know. But, like you said. After all this?" He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the town. "I f-feel like it's time to...really think about things."  
  
Richie pulled Bill into a hug. "You call me, Big Bill. Anytime. Night or day. If you want anything, or need anything. Or just want to hang out and act 13 years old again. Whatever. Anything. Promise me. I'll be there." They'd all made similar promises already. But Bill and Richie were both living in LA. It just made sense.  
  
"You too, Richie. You promise me the same thing."  
  
"I will."  
  
Finally they parted, both with tears in their eyes. Richie watched Bill get into his car and drive away before taking one last look around, at the bridge and the lights of the town a short distance away. That feeling he'd had, that there was something else he needed to do, was gone. He'd said his goodbyes and he'd never see this place again. That was fine by him. He got into his car and left Derry behind for good.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a note about what I mean when I say "canon compliant." I read the book many times, but a long time ago, saw the miniseries once a long time ago, and have seen the first movie twice and the second movie once. If the material from the book to the filmed versions is different (for example the Losers forgetting each other again at the end in the book as opposed to remembering each other afterwards in the movie) I'll use whichever one I like best or suits my purposes in the story the best. If I have something in my story that is directly contradicted by both the book and the films, it's most likely because I have forgotten that there is canon to be used in that situation. I do want to reread the book and rewatch the movies but that is a long ass book and the second movie isn't out to buy yet so I'm working with what I have for now. 
> 
> I rated this Teen for language even though that seemed a little silly. But whatever. There will maybe/probably be sequels to this (although as of right now nothing I have in progress requires that you read this to know what's going on) and they won't be Gen. We will see how long my motivation holds up.


End file.
